Malcolm Lewis Pratt
Lieutenant Commander Malcolm L. “Doc” Pratt served as the regimental surgeon of the 5th Marines.
He was reported missing in action from the “Goettge Patrol” at Guadalcanal, Solomon Islands, on 13 August 1942.
Branch
Navy Reserve, Medical Corps
Service Number 11361
Current Status
Remains Not Recovered
Pursuit Category
The DPAA has not publicized this information.
History
Malcolm Lewis Pratt was born in Bellefontaine, Ohio on 5 August 1891, the youngest of four children raised by Lester and Sarah Jackson Pratt. His father was a physician, and Malcolm aspired to follow in those footsteps. As a young man, he worked as a timekeeper for the Cleveland, Cincinnati, Chicago and St. Louis Railway (known as the Big Four Railroad) and studied at the University of Virginia (class of 1911) and at Jefferson Medical College in Philadelphia. Malcolm graduated in 1914, becoming the third Doctor Pratt in the family.
The elder Pratt doctors – Lester Cross and Lester Leslie – had very different careers. Lester C. Pratt had a successful private practice in Bellefontaine, while Lester L. Pratt served in the United States Navy as an assistant surgeon.[1] Malcolm decided to hang out his shingle in Bellefontaine, but as the United States drew closer to a declaration of war with Germany, he considered his options in military service. On 30 March 1917, he joined the Naval Reserve as a lieutenant (j.g.), Medical Corps. By May, he was serving in the Philadelphia Naval Hospital – close by Lieutenant Lester L. Pratt, fresh off duty with the battleship USS Oklahoma. However, Leslie was soon on the move again, with an assignment to the 5th Marines.
Malcolm must have found the idea of serving with the Corps compelling, for in December 1917 he transferred from Philadelphia to Quantico. Early the next year, he went overseas with a Marine replacement battalion and was soon on the front lines with the 2nd Division, American Expeditionary Force. Whether by accident or by design, he wound up alongside his brother once again – just in time for the battle of Belleau Wood. The Doctors Pratt soon earned reputations for extreme bravery, operating aid stations under heavy fire and without regard for their own safety. Lester received special notice for just such an exploit at Marigny on 3 June 1918. However, their most extraordinary exploit was yet to come.
On 11 June 1918, Lieutenant Commander Lester Pratt was running an aid post at Lucy-le-Bocage. He had many wounded men – American and German – under his care, all victims of the meat grinder of Belleau Wood. A heavy barrage fell on the makeshift hospital, demolishing his dugout and sending a piece of shrapnel into his face just below the left eye. Bloodied and coughing in the gas-laden air, Lester Pratt “refused to leave his post until all the wounded including Germans had been treated and evacuated.”[2] When news of the mishap reached the 5th Marines regimental aid station, Lieutenant Malcolm Pratt immediately volunteered to reestablish the aid station – and “this he accomplished under heavy and continuous shell fire, without regard to his personal safety, saving many lives.”[3]
Both brothers were decorated with the Navy Cross for their valor on 11 June.[4]
The President of the United States of America takes pleasure in presenting the Navy Cross to Lieutenant (MC) Malcom L. Pratt, United States Navy, for extraordinary heroism while serving as a Surgeon attached to the Fifth Regiment (Marines), 2d Division, American Expeditionary Forces, in action on 11 June 1918, at eight o’clock, P. M. Immediately after reporting at the Regimental Aid Station Lieutenant Pratt volunteered to re-establish an advanced aid station just demolished by shell fire in Lucy le Bocage, where medical assistance was imperatively needed. This he accomplished under heavy and continuous shell fire, without regard to his personal safety, saving many lives. Also near Thiaucourt, France, 13 September 1918, Lieutenant Pratt displayed devotion to duty by continuing to dress and evacuate the wounded under direct and continuous shell fire.
Malcolm and Lester served through the end of the war and into the armistice. While Lester opted to stay in uniform – he would eventually retire as a rear admiral – Malcolm resigned his commission on 13 October 1919. His recent marriage to Katharine West likely factored into the decision to return to civilian life. Their first child, John Lester Pratt, was born in 1920, followed by Sara, Mary, and Jane. The Pratts enjoyed a peaceful life for the next two decades and were a well-known family in Bellefontaine – buoyed considerably by Malcolm’s war hero past and reputation as one of the city’s leading surgeons.
In 1941, with war clouds gathering once again, Malcolm decided to re-join the Navy. He was approaching fifty and not an ideal candidate for front-line service, but with his service record exemptions could be made. He was reinstated with the rank of Lieutenant Commander, Medical Corps, and – possibly at his request – assigned to his old unit, the 5th Marines. His son, John, also joined the Marine Corps and earned his commission as a second lieutenant in November 1941.
Despite his advanced age, “Doc” Pratt was cleared for overseas duty and sailed from California with the 1st Marine Division in the summer of 1942. On the long voyage he befriended 1Lt. Ralph Cory, another older officer who served as an interpreter, and correspondent Richard Tregaskis. He was amused by the antics of the young Marines as they sailed into the unknown:
I went below to look around in the hold last night, expecting to find the kids praying, and instead I found ’em doing a native war dance. One of them had a towel for a loin cloth and a blackened face, and he was doing a cancan while another beat a tomtom. In one corner of the room there were about four or five boys wrestling around, but no one paid any attention to them.[5]
The “kids” liked their doctor, too. “Old Commander Pratt [was] one of the best doctors the Marine Corps ever had,” opined Sergeant Charles “Monk” Arndt.[6] Tregaskis deemed Pratt an “incorrigible adventurer.”[7]
Planners expected a bloodbath on the beaches of Guadalcanal, but when the First and Third Battalions of the 5th Marines landed on 7 August 1942, there was no resistance at all.[8]For the first several days ashore, Doctor Pratt had little to do at the regimental aid station. He watched the air raids, poked around with captured Japanese supplies, and held nightly conversations with tentmates Cory and Tregaskis.
Without the distraction of other men to treat, Pratt turned to diagnosing himself – and was dismayed with the results. His health was fragile after the long voyage and the unfamiliar tropical conditions, and he recognized the symptoms of tuberculosis. Pratt worried that he might be sent home and miss out on his last great adventure.
On 12 August 1942, Pratt learned of a patrol forming for a trip beyond the Marine perimeter. Colonel Frank B. Goettge, the Division intelligence officer, was the man in charge; he wanted several R-2 men from the 5th Marines, including Lieutenant Cory. Pratt, sensing that the patrol might be his last opportunity to see some action,” volunteered his services.[9] No other medical personnel would accompany the group. It seemed like a jaunt – two dozen Marines laughing and joking, leading a captured Japanese sailor on a leash, waiting to board a boat and stage a daring commando-style raid with no resistance expected. A perfect endcap to a colorful career.
The patrol got off to a late start, and the men were not fully briefed on the mission until they left the dock. They would sail down the coast past Point Cruz, land at a certain spot indicated by the prisoner, and at first light capture an entire garrison of Japanese and Korean troops who wanted to surrender. The Marines would then march their captives back along the coast, scouting and drawing as they went, vastly expanding the limited intelligence at their disposal. Unfortunately, nothing went according to plan. In the disorienting darkness the boat landed too soon and grounded on a sandbar. The noise alerted a Japanese guard unit, and the Imperial troops were ready and waiting when the Americans hit the shore. Colonel Goettge was shot and killed while reconnoitering into the trees, and 1Sgt. Steven A. Custer was also hit. “He was wounded in the left side of the face and the right hand,” recalled Platoon Sergeant Frank Few. “Dr. Pratt fixed him up.”[10]
As Pratt worked on Custer, the Japanese opened fire on the trapped patrol. Several other men were soon wounded – including Pratt, who was shot in the buttocks as he applied bandages and sulfa powder. He managed to treat a few other Marines, including Frank Few, before another bullet struck him in the chest. Doctor Pratt died on the beach, along with 22 of the 25 men who departed for the patrol. He was fifty-two – the oldest casualty in the battle for Guadalcanal.
The loss of the patrol – and the gory fate that befell them, as reported by survivor Frank Few – sent shock waves through the 1st Marine Division. Richard Tregaskis, who was visiting Tulagi when his friends departed, returned to an empty tent.
I felt a loneliness which could not be gainsaid. Lieut. Cory and Dr. Pratt, both of whom are missing and believed dead on the last Matanikau excursion, bunked in this tent.[11]
There would be one more Pratt family connection to the battlefield. Months after the Goettge Patrol, First Lieutenant John Lester Pratt arrived on Guadalcanal with the 6th Marines. And, like his father, he would never leave alive. Malcolm fell in the first days of the long campaign; John died at the very end, just days before the island was officially secured. Katherine Pratt received posthumous Purple Heart medals for her husband and her son; she later sponsored a destroyer escort (DE-363) – fittingly named USS Pratt – in their honor.
Officially, Malcolm Pratt and the rest of the Goettge Patrol were missing in action. Even after Tregaskis’ Guadalcanal Diary became a bestselling book and a hit motion picture, the exact fate of the men who participated were kept under wraps from the public. Members of the 5th Marines, however, knew the truth. Combat patrols returned with tales of dismembered Americans strewn along the banks and bobbing in the waters of the Matanikau River.
[A patrol from K/3/5th Marines] found Goettge’s men on the east bank of the river.
The smell came first, “a scent that those of us who were there can recall in an instant,” said Sergeant Thurman Miller. “What lay beneath the foliage was no longer human.… Sticking out of the sand was a boot, containing the foot of its owner. I scraped in the sand and uncovered another legging with the leg still in it.”
“The first thing I saw was the severed head of a Marine,” recalled Sergeant Jim McEnery. “I almost let out a yell because the head was moving back and forth in the water and looked like it was alive. Then I realized it was just bobbing in the small waves lapping at the shore. They would wash it up onto the sand a few inches, then it would float back out again when the waves receded.” Their shocked eyes beheld parts strewn in every direction as they slowly worked across the sandspit. The ragged stump of a leg sporting a neatly laced boondocker. A headless, armless torso still clad in a first sergeant’s shirt. Less identifiable pieces floated in the water or lay fly-covered and rotting in the sand. Some men began to retch, but most stood stock still in horrified silence. “No one spoke,” recalled Miller. “Not a word. Some things are better left unsaid.”
One patrol reportedly recovered a dispatch case belonging to Malcolm Pratt, but no remains were ever brought back for burial in the Marine cemetery. He was officially declared dead on 14 August 1943.
Multiple expeditions have attempted to locate the remains of the Goettge Patrol, but without success. Today, Malcolm Pratt likely lies somewhere beneath the modern city of Honiara.
LTCDR Malcolm L. Pratt is memorialized at the Manila American Cemetery and Memorial, and the Bellefontaine City Cemetery.
[1] Lester Leslie Pratt entered military service on 12 September 1910. The Navy was a lifelong career for Lester; he retired as a rear admiral.
[2] Lester L. Pratt, Navy Cross citation.
[3] Malcolm L. Pratt, Navy Cross citation.
[4] Lester Pratt also received the Army’s Distinguished Service Cross and the Croix de Guerre with palm.
[5] Richard Tregaskis, Guadalcanal Diary (New York: Random House, 1943), 32.
[6] George McMillan, The Old Breed: A History of the First Marine Division in World War II (Washington, D.C.: Infantry Journal Press, 1949. Reprint, Nashville: The Battery Press, 2001), 53.
[7] Tregaskis, Guadalcanal Diary, 95.
[8] The story was quite different for the regiment’s Second Battalion, which landed on Tulagi and suffered numerous casualties.
[9] Eric Hammel, Guadalcanal: Starvation Island (Pacifica, CA: Pacifica Military History, 1987), 132.
[10] James W. Hurlbut, untitled press release, 14 August 1942. U.S. Naval Institute collection.
[11] Tregaskis, Guadalcanal Diary, 97.
Next Of Kin Address
Address of wife, Mrs. Katherine Pratt.
Location Of Loss
The Goettge Patrol was ambushed near the western bank of the Matanikau.
Gallery
Goettge Patrol Casualties
Missing in action 12-13 August 1942.
Leaving Mac Behind: The Lost Marines of Guadalcanal
Frank Few lay in his foxhole, wishing the daylight away. Warm seawater swirled into his foxhole, turning pinkish as it mingled with the blood seeping from his chest and arm. Sand was everywhere—stuck to the Japanese blood on his clothes, in his eyes, in the Reising gun he borrowed from Monk and which would only fire single shots. Few counted out his remaining rounds and stuffed them into his mouth to keep the sand and salt water away. Occasionally, a bullet snapped
overhead, as if he needed a reminder to keep his head down.
Trapped in a flooding foxhole, wounded, almost out of ammunition, with the sun coming up. It could not get much worse: “The hell with this for a lark,” he thought.
Read more about the Goettge Patrol in "Leaving Mac Behind."
Click the cover for details.
According to a Marine Corps monograph previous to August 21, a patrol found Pratt’s dispatch case ,,,,
See #16 at footnote 3 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frank_Goettge
John Lester Pratt memorial https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/3789474/john-lester-pratt
Yes, I’ve seen the account in the monograph. It strikes me as weird that Pratt would bring his dispatch case along on the patrol (as the only medical specialist he surely had more important things to carry) and even more weird that the Japanese would not have claimed it for its potential intelligence value. Especially since they had several days of unopposed access to the area.
This, plus the fact that the monograph makes the (obviously false) claim that no bodies of the Goettge Patrol were ever found, makes me wonder if this is a bit of fabrication. I believe several veterans took issue with the way the monograph described the aftermath of the patrol. See Thurman Miller and Jim McEnery (K/3/5) memoirs.